Before founding Avidan Strategies, Avi spent 30+ years with leading global agencies in senior management positions working with Fortune 500 companies. He was a board of director member at Saatchi & Saatchi and Havas, respectively. At Havas, he was their first Global Executive Director. In this capacity he interfaced with the creative, media, data and digital operations of 300 offices in 90 countries.

 

Under his leadership Havas was named by Advertising Age as “Global Agency of the Year”, and Havas Media as “Media Agency of the Year.”

 

Earlier, as CEO of Berlin Cameron Red Cell, Avi led it to becoming the fastest growing agency in America. This agency too was also named “Agency of the Year” by both leading advertising publications, Advertising Age and Adweek, respectively. Following that, he helped sell the agency to Sir Martin Sorrell's WPP, the world's biggest communication company. Following the acquisition, Avi led an expansion of the network it from its original office in New York to a global network of 65 countries. 

 

Prior to Saatchi & Satchi, Havas and Berlin Cameron Red Cell, Avi was Executive VP, account management at Y&R and D’Arcy (now Publicis). A Harvard Business School case studies about leadership and innovation profiled Avi following the introduction of the Colgate toothbrush which captured market leadership in less than 12 months.

 

During his career Avi has worked with such companies as Procter & Gamble, Kraft (General Foods), AT&T, Pfizer, Samsung, Sprint, General Motors, Merck, Intel, Cigna, Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, Bayer, Reebok, ADT, Travelers Insurance, Verizon, Safeway,  Delta Airlines, Wall Street Journal, Bristol Myers, and Colgate-Palmolive, to name a few prominent companies. 

 

He is a native of Israel, a former army officer, and a Columbia B.A. in Economics and an MBA, and he writes a weekly column for FORBES about marketing and managing agency relations.